Even after the toll of the dual work stoppages last year, totals for a host of broadcast shows are on par with or better than their 2022-23 averages.
To protest the cuts made by latest owner Alden Global Capital, staffs plan walkouts Thursday at the Chicago Tribune, Virginian-Pilot and other prize-winning papers — and warn they could hinder publication. (Kiichiro Sato/AP)
Bright spots like The Golden Bachelor and the NFL can’t paper over a lost fall for the networks.
Top TV producer Ryan Murphy is launching the Ryan Murphy Productions Assistance Fund “to support the exceptional casts and committed crews” of the company’s shows who have been impacted by the ongoing writers and actors strikes. The fund is starting with $500,000.
The union representing the company’s newsroom employees criticized the CEO for cutting jobs and hurting local journalism.
The Writers Guild of America said that its 11,500 unionized screenwriters will head to the picket lines on Tuesday. Negotiations between studios and the writers, which began in March, failed to reach a new contract before the writers’ current deal expired just after midnight, at 12:01 a.m. PT Tuesday. All script writing is to immediately cease, the guild informed its members. The board of directors for the WGA, which includes both a West and an East branch, voted unanimously to call for a strike, effective at the stroke of midnight. Writers, they said, are facing an “existential crisis.”
Talks between the writers and the studios concluded Monday night without an agreement. A statement from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, said, “Negotiations between the AMPTP and the WGA concluded without an agreement today.” No word yet from the WGA but it’s expected to lead to a writers strike on Tuesday.
Studios have moved up deadlines for TV writers, and latenight shows are preparing to go dark. But for other segments of the industry, it’s business as usual.
The Writers Guild of America is adding pressure on Hollywood studios, highlighting how their shows and streaming platforms will be affected by a strike if it happens on May 2.